Salma Hayek, CEO

Last week, Salma Hayek partnered with MGM to form Ventanazul, a production company that aims to make “movies that have Latino themes but appeal to mass audiences.” If anyone can do that, Salma can. The woman has a vision, and it’s been a beautiful sight to behold thus far.

The write-up in the New York Times was interesting for a couple of reasons: First, it appeared in the Business section, under the heading “Latina Ambassador to Hollywood.” Nice. Getting a nod in the biz section means she now commands a measure of respect that is not often afforded to actresses in general, let alone Latinas. So that’s way cool. (And let’s just crown her Ambassador to Lesbo-land while we’re at it.)

Also notable is the evaluation of the movie industry’s efforts in this area:

Hollywood has had little success so far in appealing to the large and growing Latino audience in the United States, with flops like Fox’s 2003 effort, “Chasing Papi.”

Chasing Papi?! OK, I haven’t even heard of it, but whatever its chances were in 2003, it’s definitely doomed now. I can’t help but imagine some sort of ill-conceived L-Word-meets-Chasing-Amy debacle, in which Papi walks in on Kit in a threesome with Angus and Ivan and winds up heartbroken and selling comic-book-inspired fedoras.